Forrest Gump 1994

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: This tall tale may reach monumental proportions, but Forrest Gump always keeps its magical airiness and grace. Read more

Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune: Credit for the success of the film has to start with director Robert Zemeckis, who has taken his Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit success and parlayed it into a more mature, yet equally entertaining, film. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: It's most successful when it is being off-center, a state of grace it doesn't quite have the nerve to maintain. Read more

Jay Boyar, Orlando Sentinel: The movie's technical tricks are great fun, as is its musical soundtrack, which captures the essences of the eras it traverses. But when you come right down to it, it's the oddly magnetic personality of Forrest himself that is the biggest draw. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: This isn't the meaningful movie it pretends to be. But as a goofy entertainment that speeds through the latter half of the 20th century, stopping here and there to snap a photo or two, Forrest Gump does just fine. Read more

John Hartl, Seattle Times: Good as Wright and Sinise are in their roles as Forrest's near-suicidal soulmates, the movie always comes back to Hanks, and director Robert Zemeckis helps him to achieve some of his finest emotional moments. Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: Like the best movie actors, Hanks is a superb reactor. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: Judging by the the movie's enduring popularity, the message that stupidity is redemption is clearly what a lot of Americans want to hear. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Reduces the tumult of the last few decades to a virtual-reality theme park: a baby-boomer version of Disney's America. Read more

Amy Nicholson, L.A. Weekly: So afraid to dredge up debate that when Forrest is handed a mic at an antiwar rally, someone unplugs the speakers so we can't hear him - fitting for a movie with nothing to say. Read more

David Ansen, Newsweek: For all its ambition, the movie ends up using great historical events in the service of a dubious sentimentality. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: Warm, wise, and wearisome as hell. Read more

Dave Kehr, New York Daily News: A dark and driven work, haunted by violence, cruelty and a sense of the tragically absurd. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: Forrest Gump has the elements of an emotionally gripping story. Yet it feels less like a romance than like a coffee-table book celebrating the magic of special effects. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Passionate and magical, Forrest Gump is a tonic for the weary of spirit. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: What a magical movie. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: A movie heart-breaker of oddball wit and startling grace. Read more

Edward Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle: Hanks is so charming as Gump, so heroic in his guilelessness and belief in simple virtues, that you want to excuse the film's excesses and overlook Zemeckis' weakness for easy, maudlin sentiment. Read more

Tom Charity, Time Out: As this mawkish conservative movie ultimately goes to prove: ignorance is bliss. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: A picaresque story of a simpleton's charmed odyssey through 30 years of tumultuous American history, Forrest Gump is whimsy with a strong cultural spine. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: Hanks is superb, reemploying the childlike presence he brought to Big. Read more